Interview Lillian Wilkie

“I consider photography as my intervention in the world.”

Name: Lillian Wilkie
Hometown: Manchester, but now living in East London
Style of Photography: fine art photography, book arts
Type of Cameras: I mainly use a mid-range Nikon 35mm SLR, but also use a Fuji 6×9 Rangefinder, FED4 35mm Rangefinder, Smena 8 35mm camera and disposable film cameras.
Website: www.lillianwilkie.co.uk

What gives you inspiration?

Most of my work develops from an interest in a historical period, event, building or object. I have a compulsion to discover ‘how’ and ‘why’ things are as they are, and strive to create artworks by connecting up various points in my research, moving forwards and backwards through time and geographically across the globe. You could say I am primarily inspired by travel and journeying, be that long-distance European train travel, a short walk around my local neighbourhood, or time-travel via an archive or historical research.

What are your influences?

The concepts and methods in my work are influenced by many of the 1960’s Land Artists and artists such as Hamish Fulton who use perambulation as an investigative and artistic tool. Visually I am influenced by the new wave of young artists and photographers who, whilst utilising the internet and digital technologies to disseminate and promote their work, are championing analogue formats and techniques, hand-made practices, and keeping film alive. All of the above influences have opened my eyes to the possibilities of the photographic object, and it is through this I have begun to make book works.

Why did you choose these photos?

I feel the photos I have selected represent the quiet and subtle nature of my work. I like to focus on details, on moments held in the subconscious. I tend not to think too much about what I shoot, simply capturing what seems natural to me at the time. People feature rarely, and where the do they appear small in the frame, emphasising a phenomenological sense of being in a particular environment. These photographs also demonstrate a delicate colour palette and tonality - the precise reasons I love to use film.

What does photography mean to you?

Such a difficult question! I consider photography as my intervention in the world, and I use my camera to investigate, to explore and to consider. Finally I am useless at writing, and it is only through my photographs can I feel I can touch on the poetic.

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